Of Cat By Cat Reviews: Stories Featuring Fellow Felines and Their Friends

          The 13^th Hex by Jordan L. Hawk is the story of a misfortunate unbonded feline familiar named Cicero who gets dragged into danger by his crow familiar friend, Rook, and nearly drowns. Having once accidentally dropped my favorite catnip toy into my water bowl and seeing no way to retrieve it without getting my paws wet, I could easily relate to the terror that Cicero felt in being nearly completely submerged in water.  If Rook was any kind of real friend, he should know that cats do not like water. Though Mrs. Blakeley, who was visiting for tea Thursday last, mentioned to Miss Butterwith her cousin’s cat Mr. Tibbles actually plays at the faucet. However, I seriously doubt whether Mrs. Blakeley actually knows what a cat is, because while helping clean up after tea, she declared there was not enough cream to save and promptly poured it down the drain. And I was sitting right there. Next to my clean bowl. That Miss Butterwith always fills with the remainder of the cream. Thank goodness Miss Butterwith was there to give me a little splash of fresh cream. And a kipper.

….Miss Butterwith has just come in and informed me that I might have mistaken the main characters of the story The 13^th Hex.  I am not entirely sure that she is correct, but I will try again.

The 13^th Hex is the story of Dominic Kopecky, a hexman, and Rook, an unbonded familiar, working together to find out who is murdering people with altered hexes. In the end they may get more than they ever dreamed of…..and Cicero gets some fresh cream…..

Miss Butterwith has also just informed me that Cicero gets his very own story in Hexbreaker where he teams up with someone named Tom. This seems wholly appropriate since as everyone knows a tom is a male cat, and who better than a Tom to work with Cicero. It is sure to be very delightful and I look forward to reading it while enjoying a nice fresh bowl of cream....and maybe a kipper.

Regards, Mr. Pinkerton.

 

 The Hexworld prequel short story The 13th Hex is out now at:

Amazon , AmazonUK , ARe , Smashwords , Kobo , BN and iBook

Cicero's Story, Hexbreaker, out May 6th is available for pre-order:

Amazon , AmazonUK , ARe , Smashwords , Kobo , iBook , and BN

      While I am busy working with my ghost writer to document new adventures, I have decided to make your waiting time easier by sharing older adventures.
       This first one tells the very harrowing moment when my very favorite catnip mouse fell in the water bowl. I can barely look back on this without shuddering.
                                              Enjoy, Mr. Pinkerton

Mr. Pinkerton and The Drowned Mouse



Mr. Pinkerton realized his mistake nearly the same instant he made it. He had been reluctant to abandon the new catnip mouse that Miss Butterwith had gotten for him at the Village Fete Sunday last so when he went to get a drink of water of course he brought it with him. He meant to drop it beside the bowl, but instead in it went. It wasn’t really his fault, the bowl was too large.

                Mr. Pinkerton wondered briefly if this was how Lassie felt when Timmy went in the well. But no, boys pulled cats tails or chased them or threw rocks, so definitely no. This was a completely different situation.  One that he didn’t quite know how to get out of.

                Maybe he should just yowl until Miss Butterwith came in to investigate. Miss Butterwith always liked to investigate things.  But Miss Butterwith was in the garden, and she very often sang to herself while she worked in the garden.

                Perhaps he should go out to the garden himself and tell Miss Butterwith that his mouse fell in the water bowl. But what if she didn’t understand what it was he was trying to tell her? The number of times Mr. Pinkerton had gone to tell Miss Butterwith something only to have her exclaim, “Dear me Mr. Pinkerton! You are a genius!” Then she would go ring Inspector Appleby. Meanwhile Mr. Pinkerton’s needs would go unaddressed.

                Another option, of course was for him to reach in and grab it himself. But the mouse was wet, it would drip, maybe even on his paws. If there was one thing Mr. Pinkerton did not like was getting his paws wet. So this option was not really an option at all.

Mr. Pinkerton sat down on his haunches and contemplated his dilemma.

The door to the garden opened and Miss Butterwith came in singing “Love in Bloom”, removing her garden hat and gloves.

“Mew” said Mr. Pinkerton, with all the hopelessness and despair he was feeling instilled in that one plaintive plea.

“Oh, bless”, said Miss Butterwith. “Poor dear, what has happened?” She came closer, peering into the water bowl beside which M. Pinkerton sat. She then reached down and plucked the little mouse out of the water. “There, there Mr. Pinkerton, we’ll just lay it out to dry.” She suited action to words by pulling a tea towel out of a drawer and placing the sodden mouse atop it.  She also had also removed something else from that same drawer.

 “Well, it’s a good thing I got you more than one”, smiled Miss Butterwith as she leaned down and ran a hand from the top of Mr. Pinkerton’s head all the way down his back to that wonderful place at the base of his tail.

Mr. Pinkerton could not stop the purr that started from his throat as he arched up into Miss Butterwith’s   hand while taking the mouse she offered. He knew he would never, ever put it down.    The End